Late into the night, the snow fell and fell. The clouds blanketed the entire countryside in layer upon layer of the thick, wet flakes; the cold fluff weighed down tree branches until they buckled and piled on steepled roofs until the eaves groaned with the effort of holding themselves up.
Everywhere was drenched in glittering white: the snow was so copious that the minute details of the landscape were completely obliterated and only a great frosty canvas remained. It was the worst snow since the nearly 50-centimeter accumulation in 1987, and it was colder even than the great freeze of 1963.
People hunched by the fires in their houses and wondered when it would ever let up. Hardly any were fool enough to venture out. In the quiet hours of the night, people curled into themselves in their beds, trying to hold onto what warmth they could find, and they pitied anyone who had been caught out in the storms.
But the storms were not going to let up, not anytime soon. The Dementors were breeding at unheard-of rates, casting their hopelessness and despair all about the country. The snowfall began to seem eternal, and most everyone retreated to what little comfort could be gained from remaining indoors, everyone except—
Hermione hunched deeper into her cloaks, her eyes the only part of her body exposed to the frigid cold. Snowflakes caught in her lashes and stung her skin. The tiny jar containing her unique blue flame was no match for the wind, and the warmth the faltering flame provided was minimal.
Her face was suffocatingly warm where she exhaled against the fabric of her cloak. In the hour that she'd been sitting outside their tent, the snow had completely covered her feet and was now creeping up her ankles. Idly, she wondered if her protective enchantments would keep the snow in, and if they'd be buried alive in the heavy wetness.
Chuffing her hands against her arms to dispel the numbness in her limbs, Hermione began to mentally recite all the spells from The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1, in order. She'd hardly be any use to Harry if she froze to death outside their tent, and keeping her mind active was the only way to make sure she did not succumb to hypothermia.
But soon, her thoughts turned to Ron, and she had to fight back her tears lest they turn to ice against her face. She hated him for leaving her, leaving them—but oh, she hoped he was alright! She couldn't bear to think that he was out there somewhere, wandering lost through this smothering snowfall. If only she could have him back, then she wouldn't hesitate to tell him, wouldn't wait another moment to say, "I love you—"
"Ron!" Fleur's voice rang out, echoing wildly against the impassive snow. Even at the coast, the white blanket was thick and growing thicker. Bizarre, frothy ice crystals formed at the point where the chilled waves met the snow on the shore, and Ron raised his eyes from this phenomenon to look towards the tiny house.
"Please come in! Your bruzzer, 'e will not like you to be outside!" Her hands came to rest on her hips, and Ron knew, after days living with her, that her posture meant she would not be contradicted. He and Fleur had developed an uneasy but cordial relationship while he stayed with them, and even if she did not approve of his reasons for being there, she at least made sure he was fed and clothed.
Standing and dusting himself off, Ron was surprised to notice that his earlier path from the house had been almost completely filled in with new snow. He must have been outside longer than he had realized. It was no surprise, though—there was much on his mind, and he was desperate to figure out some answer he hadn't noticed before. Sitting outside seemed to help him focus, so he had become accustomed to the snow.
But no matter how much he sat in the snow dunes overlooking the sea, a solution had yet to present itself. He worried that he would never make it back to Harry and Hermione, and then what? He could hardly show his face amongst the rest of his family—the twins and Ginny would disown him immediately. His heart stuttered when he thought of his sister, and he hoped she was alright. He had to trust that Hogwarts was safe enough for now, and besides, there was no one more fierce than—
Ginevra Weasley, The Burrow. The letter from Hogwarts sat unopened on the kitchen table while Ginny debated tossing it, contents unseen, into the fire. No letter from the school's new Headmaster could bring good news, she was sure of it. And yet, maybe Snape's missive to the Weasleys would contain some hint, some clue, something worth her while that she could use against him when she returned to school-
Mrs. Weasley swept the letter out of Ginny's hands before Ginny could make up her mind. Ginny watched guardedly as her mother scanned the parchment, trying to decipher from Molly's expression just how much trouble she was in. To her utter confusion, tears welled in Mrs. Weasley's eyes, and the look she turned on Ginny was heart wrenching.
As Molly enveloped her in a rib-cracking hug, Ginny could think of no other response but to pat her mum awkwardly on the back before retreating to the yard. Since returning home for the holidays, her relationship with her parents had been strained. They'd begged her not to go back to school, and when that had failed, cautioned her to keep her head down and the attention of Snape and the Carrows off her.
But Ginny would never back down from the people she had come to associate with Harry's departure from her life. She may not be able to strike at Voldemort directly, but she could make life a living hell for his deputies. Standing knee-deep in snow and gazing defiantly at the falling crystals, she thought of her partners in the reformed DA: Luna, and...
Neville murmured the spell again, flicking his wand in the short pattern his book showed. If he was going to continue in his role as the leader of the new Dumbledore's Army, he needed as many weapons on his side as he could get. Some of the older spells in Gran's books were just the ticket—if only he could learn and remember them well enough to teach the others.
His Gran had been an entirely different person since he'd been shoved off the train at King's Cross, yelling and struggling with the guards. He'd been forced to watch as Luna was hauled unceremoniously off the train, her Spectrespecs trampled under the heavy boots of the Death Eaters. Determined not to sit by and let them take her quietly, he had screamed until his throat was raw and fired off jinxes until they'd been forced to Body-Bind him.
Gazing at the window, which was nearly entirely obscured by the snow, he barely registered when his Gran set a tray of tea and biscuits down next to him, exiting the room with a worried glance in his direction. They had never had an easy relationship, he and Gran; but now she seemed to realize he had grown up, and every few days he found another set of spell books on his bedside table, not all of them the kind of books with Ministry-approved spells.
But it was clear, to him at least, that the Ministry could not be trusted, and he would rather die than allow himself and the other students at Hogwarts to be tortured and turned over to You-Know-Who without a fight. Turning his focus back to the book in front of him, he practiced the spell again and again until he had it right. He would not allow another student to be taken from Hogwarts, not like—
Luna removed her frozen fingertips from the stone of the dungeon wall, unsure whether it was snowing outside or if their captors just wanted them to freeze to death. She heard a rattling sound coming from the middle of the darkened room, and she sidled closer to it, the path from the wall to where the man sat embedded in her memory.
Sitting as close as she could to Mr. Ollivander, she wrapped her arms around the frail little wizard, trying to calm the chattering of his teeth. She had already given him her cloak and school robe, and would have given him the rest of her clothes if she thought it would help him, but there wasn't much to be done in the mind-numbing cold of the Malfoy dungeon.
Humming quietly to take their minds off their situation, Luna rather thought she'd prefer to at least see the weather which was making them so miserable. The snow had only started to fall as they'd made the trek to Hogsmeade to board the train, and she'd been taken from the relative warmth and safety of the Express shortly after stepping foot on the locomotive. Now she had been here for eleven days, by her count; the appearance of Mr. Pettigrew or Draco was the only way she could mark the time.
But she bolstered her flagging spirits by thinking of her mother; her father and his enhanced recreation of Ravenclaw's diadem; her friends, who she hoped had not been beset by Wrackspurts; and yes, even her captors. The Malfoys, on the few occasions she'd glimpsed them, had looked scared, defeated. The youngest hardly even looked like himself anymore, and she almost felt sorry for—
Draco fell to his hands and knees in the soft snow, retching violently. After he stopped coughing, he rolled onto his side and allowed the coolness of the snow melting against his flushed face to calm him. If he had to personally perform the Cruciatus one more time, he didn't know what he'd do. He could only hide his disgust for so long.
Then again, he doubted he was able to hide anything from the Dark Lord. In fact, that was probably why the Dark Lord continued to order Draco to carry out the punishments—because he knew Draco couldn't stomach them. Frowning with hatred, Draco wished the new term would hurry up. At least at school he could go easy on the Crucio; most of the students who received detentions knew by now that he wouldn't curse them very strongly, and if they put on a convincing show, the Carrows would be satisfied.
He hated the Carrows. They were stupider even than Crabbe and Goyle, but meaner, too. Draco missed the days when the Dark Lord was gone, and dignified Death Eaters like his father were the ones running the show. The riff-raff that had reassembled with the Dark Lord's return were, quite frankly, turning Draco away from a future with the Death Eaters. He shuddered to think what would happen to him if the Dark Lord managed to extract that thought from him.
But, thankfully, he did have some skill with Occlumency, so he buried his traitorous desires as deeply as he could and dragged himself out of the blissful numbing cocoon he was in. Trudging back towards the Manor, he wondered whether Snape would consent to train him further. He had long suspected that Snape was a more skilled Occlumens than anyone knew; he only hoped he could use that to his advantage when he bargained for tutelage with...
Severus Snape strode out of the castle, melting a path through the ocean of snow with his wand as he went. Reaching the outer boundaries of the castle and its protective spells, he Disapparated to an unknown wood, Phineas Nigellus' words echoing in his ears.
He had bided his time, and now he had an opportunity to deliver the sword that Potter—apparently—so desperately needed. Creeping silently through the dense trees, he was grateful for the dusting of snowflakes that had managed to penetrate the tangle of branches to muffle his footsteps. The sword was as cold as an icicle as it bumped his leg with each step, but he barely registered anything besides the sounds of the forest.
He searched the wood, trailing behind his Patronus, for close to an hour before he began to grow impatient. It seemed the trio's ability to hide themselves was in fact every bit as good as reported by the multitude of Snatchers who had failed to bring The Boy Who Lived to the Dark Lord—they really had become untraceable. He snorted in disdain. Leave it to Potter to finally excel at the one thing which Severus needed him to fail...
But he firmed his resolve and continued to march through the eerily quiet forest, the cold finally worming its way past his cloak and seeping into his bones. Oddly, he felt far too old for this, and wondered if he would ever see a day where he could let his guard down. It had been so long since he had felt free—if, in fact, he ever even had felt free. A crunch brought his musings to a halt, and his gaze sharpened on a figure several meters away. At long last, it was—
Harry crept past their protective enchantments, following the glowing doe through the powdery snow as it picked its way deeper into the forest. The moon, for a moment unimpeded by clouds, lit up even the darkest recesses of the woods so that everything around him seemed to be made of light. The tree trunks shone with moonlight, the snow glistened, and the brilliance of the doe was reflected on every surface.
Just as Harry feared he'd be blinded by the brightness, the clouds swept in again, and the forest was plunged once more into darkness. The doe stood out that much more brightly, hurting his eyes, but he refused to look away. He was scared to so much as blink lest he lose this mysterious creature.
Finally they approached a small pond, and the doe disappeared. Staring dejectedly at the icy surface, Harry wondered what to do next. The flurries had left small drifts of snow on the pond's covering, and swirls of flakes danced across the ice as he came closer. Spying the glimmer of something on the bottom of the lake, Harry was filled with an unyielding sense of purpose. All he had to do was survive the frigid waters. No big deal, he thought darkly.
But Harry was a Gryffindor, through and through, and so he discarded his clothing and readied himself for the shock he knew was coming. To be honest, the mind-numbing cold would be a relief from the pain of betrayal he still felt over Ron's departure, and of Dumbledore's hidden truths. Taking a deep breath, the last thing he saw before he dove in was—
The snow was relentless. As the white hills became mountains, and the glistening pools became oceans, people everywhere gazed out onto the same bleakly beautiful world which had been transformed by the heaps of snow from everyday familiar into something utterly unrecognizable.
These people, ordinarily so different, were, for the moment, united by the same sense of awe at the forces of nature displayed so terrifyingly before them. The glittering expanse of white was like a Veela: unarguably gorgeous, yet unstoppably destructive. Beneath the snowy white, roofs collapsed and animals were trapped. Ice caused vehicles and feet alike to slip and slide, out of control.
No one could remember a winter quite as dark, quite as depressing, quite as thoroughly cold as this one. But then, neither could anyone remember a time when Dementors had roamed free, when the savior of the Wizarding world was presumed lost or dead, when evil had the fate of the world so thoroughly gripped in its icy talons.
But people were resilient; it would take more than a blizzard to destroy their spirits. The mounds of frozen water droplets would melt eventually, just as Good would wear down Evil: eventually. Hundreds of miles apart, eyes of all colors (warmest brown, truest blue, brightest green, deepest black) were watching, and waiting. And still, the snow fell and fell, late into the night.
A/N: Written for WeasleySeeker's "One Line Competition 3" and verliebtindich's "Weather Challenge" on HPFC. The story had to begin with the line "Late into the night, the snow fell and fell." And then for the weather challenge I drew "it's snowing heavily", so really, how much more perfect an overlap can you ask for? I couldn't think of any single story to tell, so I decided on 8 different people all experiencing the same thing in different ways. I hope it worked.
I'm not JK Rowling, no betas were harmed in the making of this story, and Alan Rickman, if you're reading this, please call me.